A decade before individual Albertans started paying a carbon tax, the province began billing large industrial polluters for carbon emissions.

That industrial carbon tax on businesses generating more than 100,000 tones of greenhouse gases per year was earmarked to fund green-inspired technology and innovation. It is distributed through an arm’s-length provincial agency.

Distroscale

That agency, which began in 2009 as the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation, has since been renamed Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA).

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It has, throughout its mandate, flown largely under the public’s radar. But its mission remains the same — to oversee the distribution of funds gathered via Alberta’s large-scale emitter carbon tax to accelerate promising projects.

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The agency has doled out more than $463 million for projects across the province since 2009, according to government data.

The result is a slew of fascinating ventures: creating power from waste heat, using algae-based biomass to produce fuels, solar research, developing better cattle grazing systems, converting waste carbon dioxide into chemicals and reducing steam required for the oilsands, to name a few.

Like community programs funded by the consumer carbon tax, cash has flowed to all corners of the province. It’s important Albertans trying to understand the government’s use of carbon tax revenue factor in ERA spending, because officials talking about the NDP’s Climate Leadership Plan often throw both into discussions. Alberta Environment and Parks included ERA revenue and expenses in the data shared with Postmedia.

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ERA sits down with industry and researchers to figure out gaps in the market, and what might prove most useful to reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The agency’s CEO Steve MacDonald said each project must meet a rigorous set of guidelines to secure funding and hit milestones before they get money. The private sector also matches ERA dollars.

Not every ERA-funded program is in Alberta. Multiple projects in both the United States and United Kingdom have received cash — but they must demonstrate an application here.

The funding situation at ERA hasn’t changed significantly since a carbon tax was thrust on consumers, but MacDonald said his group is always aware of the government of the day’s policy objectives.

“We can’t get to where we need to be unless there’s investment in technology,” he said in an interview in late February.